The present invention relates to a system and method for real-time remote shopping, in which the shopping is performed, in a shopping store with a sample item display section for the shopping customers and a commodity item display section for the store worker. More particularly, this invention relates to a system and method for real-time remote shopping, in which the customer chooses shopping items from the sample item display section using a remote shopping controller (RSC) for a shopping customer, the shopping information is sent to a mobile terminal for store worker through a wired or wireless communication networks, the store worker collects the ordered shopping items according to the received shopping information and sends the results to the RSC, the customer verifies and pays for the shopping items, and the customer finishes the shopping by picking up the shopping items.
The present invention applies generally to off-line or on-line commodity transactions, especially to a large-scale retail distribution industry.
Recently, the retail distribution industry has a trend to be larger and larger from a small retail store or a super market to a shopping mall or a shopping center. Customers want to use or enjoy many kinds of services at facilities including cinema, restaurant, health club, and government service on the same spot as well as the shopping itself. The service providers or the business owners of the large-scale shopping center tries to provide the customers with commodities of high quality and low price, to increase the profit by providing a convenient and enjoyable shopping environment. Until recently for a long time, the customers have carried a shopping cart or a shopping basket around in the store, selected and piled up the shopping items in the shopping cart or basket, proceeded to the cash register, got the casher to scan the bar-code of the items, and paid the price to finish the shopping.
The above-mentioned traditional shopping has problems. To the customers, it is tiresome to push the cart and walk around the large shopping area. Sometimes, the carts become a source of clear danger of getting personal injuries or a source of noise. Most of all, all the shopping items must be unloaded, scanned, loaded again, and then paid at the same cash register, almost all the time, in a long waiting line. The shopping was inconvenient, tiresome, and time-consuming. In the middle of shopping, the customers cannot take any rest in a relaxed environment just because of the bulky shopping carts.
To the store manager, it is also a tough job, onerous and inefficient, to keep checking and tidying up the commodity display, which is being touched and messed by the customers. It takes more staffs to take care of the situations such as missing of or damaging to the displayed or purchased commodity, which usually happens during the customer's shopping.
Recently, some advanced shopping methods using a recognition technology and communication technology to improve the problems of the traditional shopping method have been proposed. In one of them, a customer collects the shopping items in the shopping cart and inputs the information of the shopping items into a wireless terminal with a bar-code reader or RF reader, which the customer can hold on a hand or is installed on a shopping cart, while the shopping information is sent to a server in real-time, and thereby it was possible to simplify the paying procedure in the cash register. With that method, however, it was not easy to check the one-to-one correspondence between the shopping item information in the server and the shopping items in the shopping cart, and it took an extra investment in another checking method or equipments including a special bar-code, X-ray machine, weight-measuring, sample test, surveillance camera to do the necessary checking, which is also not perfect. More than anything else, the method could provoke an undesirable abhorrence from the customers.
Also, the proposed methods include a method, in which a customer collects the information of shopping items with a hand scanner, gets verified for the shopping item list and pays at the counter, and collect/picks up the shopping items at the inventory section, and other method, in which a shopping is performed by collecting the information of shopping items with a wireless terminal having a bar-code reader, sending the shopping list to a server, paying wireless, and then the store's collecting and handing over the shopping items. A problem in these methods is that the customer must wait for a long time after paying while a store worker receives the shopping item list, collects the items, packs the items, and then hands over to the customer. In addition to these, there are problems in applying due to the difficulties in pre-shopping registration, paying, and pick-up.
Accordingly, a need for a system and method for real-time remote shopping has been present for a while and got higher and higher. This invention is directed to solve these problems and satisfy the long-felt need.